charcutepalooza

When we last visited the Cabinet of Doctor Charcuterie, I still had bresaola and lonzino curing in it that were not quite ready to eat. By Saturday, ten days later, however, they had both lost 35 percent of their weight and had become firm to the touch. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I released […]

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Much to my surprise, my last Charcutepalooza post was selected by Food 52 as one of the ten best posts for the November challenge. I’m honored that my chronicles of near disaster were considered worthy of their attention. I had no time to rest on my laurels for successful salami making because there was one […]

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The November Charcutepalooza challenge was about curing, which included my old nemesis – salami – as an apprentice challenge. When I saw that lardo – which I had made successfully the first time I tried – was an advanced challenge, I thought either I got lucky with the lardo, or I really suck at making salami. […]

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These Charcutepalooza challenges can be frustrating at times, mostly because of their timing. More often than not, I have already made something using the technique of the month, just not within the month required by the challenge. In the case of the October challenge – stretching – I had already made confit, rillettes, and even […]

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I discovered meat pies on the family trip to London two years ago. Our visit to the Tower of London included lunch, and, in the spirit of the adventure, I ordered a beef and ale pie. It was a pastry shell about four inches around and three inches high, wrapped around a rich, almost bourguignon-esque […]

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I returned from the Chicago trip with the nagging feeling I had forgotten something. As frequently happens when I’m trying to retrieve information out of long-term storage, the elusive memory revealed itself to me at three in the morning: You have to make a head cheese, and you have less than a week in which […]

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Today I received a comment from Matt, one of the judges of the Charcutepalooza competition. It was a follow-up to yesterday’s post about my salami-making adventure, which I am reposting here: I would highly suggest against drying salami at 75F. At that temp you run the risk of growing some really nasty bacteria inside the […]

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Since writing this post, I have been advised about some important food safety issues concerning the temperature at which I cured the salami. Please read Matt’s comment below, or this post. Forces conspired against me, intent on foiling my latest charcuterie project, but in the end I prevailed. I was determined to take my skills […]

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If you are a regular reader of this blog, it may surprise you to learn that I was a very picky eater as a kid. Bag lunches rotated through peanut butter sandwiches, jelly sandwiches (but never PB & J), an occasional ham sandwich, and bologna sandwiches, the mainstay of the lunch menu. Mom never figured […]

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As promised in a previous post, I made duck sausage to complete the June Charcutepalooza Challenge. My local gourmet provisioner makes an excellent duck sausage with cherries, which, along with mushroom risotto, was a favorite food of a certain two-year-old in our household. Ruhlman’s Charcuterie recipe uses garlic, sage, and red wine, but at the […]